A Ljubljana demonstration involving Avant Car and Kolektor sETup used automated scheduling to shift electric-vehicle charging into lower-cost electricity periods while keeping vehicle charging requirements. The trial ran for two months, using day-ahead electricity-price signals to decide when vehicles should charge across six charging stations.
Trial results from automated day-ahead scheduling
Before optimisation, actual charging costs were 18.9% above the theoretical least-cost scenario. During the demonstration, that gap narrowed to 5.99%, an improvement of around 68% in alignment with the cheapest available charging periods. Charging sessions were moved towards less expensive periods, particularly after midnight.
Charging flexibility as an actively managed portfolio
The demonstration was presented as evidence that EV charging can be treated as an actively managed electricity portfolio rather than a passive new source of demand. The described approach links fleet operations with electricity-market signals through software that can schedule charging around when vehicles are connected and when they depart. The flexibility window is created by the hours between connection and departure, even when a vehicle needs a certain amount of electricity before its next journey.
A fleet-management platform can determine which vehicles require immediate charging, which can wait, and how aggregate consumption can be shifted between different electricity-market periods. Charging is therefore framed as an optimisation problem rather than a simple transaction between charger and vehicle. For fleet operators, the immediate benefit described is reduced electricity cost.
Implications for aggregators, balancing and local network constraints
For aggregators and electricity suppliers, the larger opportunity described is combining hundreds or thousands of chargers into a controllable portfolio. A fleet with hundreds of vehicles could potentially move several megawatts of electricity demand from one period to another without changing the transport service delivered to customers. The source also links this capability to demand response, balancing and local flexibility markets.
The material also notes a scaling challenge: if thousands of vehicles receive the same price signal and shift charging into the same cheap hour, it could create a new demand peak. It states that what is optimal for electricity consumers may not be optimal for the network, requiring smart-charging algorithms beyond simple time-of-use tariffs.
The described next stage of smart charging involves considering at least two signals simultaneously: wholesale electricity price and the physical condition of the local network. A third signal may come from balancing or flexibility markets, allowing an EV fleet to respond differently depending on which service has the highest value. Examples given include charging more aggressively when wholesale prices are low, reducing charging to relieve a distribution constraint, or altering demand when system operators need balancing flexibility.
Fleet management software and infrastructure procurement
The business model is described as particularly attractive for centrally managed fleets such as car-sharing operators, delivery companies, municipal fleets, taxis, corporate vehicles, buses and logistics companies. The source states these operators typically have better information about vehicle schedules than individual residential customers, improving forecastability for charging flexibility.
An operator may know which vehicles must leave at 06:00, which remain parked until noon, and how much energy each one requires. An optimiser can then determine the cheapest or most valuable charging schedule automatically under those constraints. In this framing, the physical charger is only one part of the service, with more value potentially located in software controlling thousands of chargers.
The text also describes potential changes in how companies procure charging infrastructure. Instead of comparing chargers mainly by hardware price and maximum power, buyers may increasingly evaluate a platform’s ability to optimise electricity cost and earn flexibility revenue over the equipment’s lifetime. It further notes that bidirectional vehicle-to-grid technology could extend opportunities by allowing electricity to flow back from EV batteries, but that bidirectional charging is not described as necessary for the first stage because controlling when vehicles consume electricity already creates substantial flexibility.
Scaling considerations as EV adoption grows
The Slovenian demonstration is described as small compared with the scale required for a liquid national flexibility market. The results are presented as indicating that smart charging of a shared fleet can reduce the gap to optimal charging costs under real operating conditions. The larger opportunity is described as scaling the model as EV adoption grows.
The source states that unmanaged charging risks becoming another source of peak electricity demand. Managed fleets are described as offering an alternative where electric vehicles become one of the largest controllable loads for power systems. For electricity companies and fleet operators, it says the value of an EV fleet may increasingly include not only kilometres travelled but also flexibility created during hours when vehicles are standing still.